VE3KCL balloon S-7

David VE3KCL's S-7 flight was launched at 11-Mar-2016 13:00Z. Like the former flights, this one also used a special U3 firmware version on an Arduino Nano board, with QRP Labs Si5351A Synthesiser. Two foil "party" balloons are used, filled with hydrogen. The design changes relative to the former S-4 flight are listed below.

Balloon S-7 landed in the Atlantic in very stormy weather!

Live tracking

The map below was updated automatically with the latest received position during the flight. During the balloon's night, there is insufficient power to run the transmitter, so no updates are received until the following morning.

Day 1 update: 11-Mar-2016

At sunset the battery does not have enough capacity to continue powering the balloon and it shuts down until the morning. The graph (below left) shows altitude, groundspeed (knots), temperature and battery voltage. Click for larger images. The map (below right) shows the progress east from the launch site in Toronto. CLICK IMAGES for full size versions.

Dave provides this breakdown of the weight of the various balloon payload components:

Lower antenna

1.18 gm

Upper antenna

1.17 gm

U3 plus solar panel

22.34 gm

Free lift

5.00 gm

Joining tape balloon

0.21 gm

Balloon string dyneema

0.15 gm

Telemetry schedule

The telemetry uses the same general system as the S-4 flight. See the S-4 page for more details of the telemetry protocol. The transmission schedule for the flight is based on a 12 minute transmission cycle, commencing on the hour and repeating every 12 minutes: